Islanders snag two picks in 1st round
The Islanders entered the NHL draft Friday night without a firstround pick, but they ended the night with two.
The Islanders made sure they didn’t miss out on any top talent, acquiring the 16th and 33rd overall picks from the Oilers in exchange for Griffin Reinhart.
General manager Garth Snow used the 16th pick on Mathew Barzal, a center who played for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the Western Hockey League this past season. The 18yearold set career highs in assists (45) and points (57) in his second season with the Thunderbirds while only playing 44 games.
Snow later grabbed Anthony Beauvillier of the QMJHL’s Shawingan Cataractes with the 28th overall pick after trading the 33rd and 72nd picks to the Lightning. Beauvillier recorded 94 points (42 goals, 52 assists) in 67 games this past season.
“He’s a kid that has skill and hockey sense up the wazzoo,” Islanders Head Amateur Scout Trent Klatt said. “He’s a terrific kid, a terrific character player.”
Meanwhile, Barzal set himself apart on a Thunderbirds team which suffered a firstround exit in the playoffs — finishing one point shy of teammate Ryan Gropp for the team’s scoring lead while playing 23 fewer games. Barzal improved upon those numbers during a stint with the Canadian U18 National Team.
With Team Canada, the 5foot11, 175pound center captured the gold medal at the 2014 Ivan Hlinka Memorial Tournament and won bronze at the 2014 and 2015 World Under18 Championships where he was named a Top3 Player, tallying 12 points in seven games.
“I’m so excited to be an Islander today,” Barzal said. “To go to a team that’s already a Cup contender is pretty crazy. I’ll drop a few spots in the draft any day to go to a team that’s a Cup contender.”
Nevertheless, the drafting of a possible No. 1 center did not come without a price.
The Islanders had to surrender Reinhart, a 21yearold lefthanded defenseman who played in eight regular season games for the team last season. The Islanders really liked Reinhart — the No. 4 pick in 2012 draft — but traded him because their scouts were so high on Barzal, according to a team source.
“We weren’t going to do the deal unless Barzal was there,” Klatt said. “It was only because he was available that we did the deal. I wouldn’t have thought he was even an option at 10 o’clock this morning.”
The additions of Barzal and Beauviller give the Islanders muchneeded depth to help out veterans Frans Nielsen and Mikhail Grabovski, both 31. — Additional reporting
by Brett Cyrgalis